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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
M. Harb, D. Leichtle, B.-Y. Kim, J.-P. Martins, J. G. van der Laan, J. Bergman, E. Polunovskiy, A. Serikov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 3 | April 2023 | Pages 305-319
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2109368
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the advances in the test blanket module program within the ITER project in the last few years concerned the evolution of the pipe forest (PF) and bioshield plug (BP) designs. In support of the design phase, nuclear analyses to assess several responses in the fusion neutronics environment inside the port interspace (PI) with the existence of the evolved PF and BP are deemed essential. Nuclear analyses were commenced using the new PF and BP with developing the neutronics models and performing preliminary assessment of the radiation fields and shutdown dose rate (SDDR) in the PI. In this paper, the results of a full suite of nuclear analyses are discussed, which covers more configurations and radiation sources, in two plasma operational modes: on and off. For the plasma-on mode, different shielding options were examined. The results show a clear benefit of combining the installation of shielding panels on the PF enclosure with those in the BP “dogleg,” through which the pipes penetrate to the port cell area. For the plasma-off mode, the SDDR was assessed from different sources: activated components and residual LiPb layers in pipes after drainage. As maintenance operations are foreseen during the lifetime of the facility, the SDDR was also assessed for access conditions, open BP doors, and transport conditions, with PF extracted in the gallery.